Last week wasn’t really enough to call a week, at just four days, with a couple of those being partial days. This week, we’ve got an actual week’s worth of data to work with and it’s starting to feel like the grind of the season is upon us here in the Razzball Commenter Leagues. That means maximizing those empty roster spots at every opportunity, hoarding all the potential closers (and racing to the waiver wire when one gets injured or demoted), and streaming starters like it’s your job. Even still, you may be sitting near the bottom of the league standings. It’s OK, we can all take a deep breath and repeat the mantra, “It’s still early”. Everyone wants to be leading their league after the first week, but only one team can. I always dream of going wire to wire, but it’s a long season, and there is plenty of time to win these things. Surely Trea Turner and Manny Machado with zero homers and one stolen base is just an anomaly, right? Just in case, let’s form a prayer decagon, shall we? Let’s take a look at which RCL teams are getting an early jump on their league standings thanks, in part, to streaming and batty-calling their butts off:
Each week we’ll peek in at our resident ‘perts to see who is laying claim to best “expert” RCLer in the land. We’ll take notes, check the standings and generally stalk them. The heading is also hyperlink, so feel free to follow along as we go.
Whip still sits atop the Perts League standings, but his lead has dropped since the first four days of the season. He dropped 18.5 points in that span, second only to Malamoney who dropped 26 points into last place. It’s silly season, where the swings are bonkers. For example, I gained 26 points this week to move from last to fifth and MarmosDad gained 24 points to move from seventh to third! The Lineup Builder was the week’s biggest dropper, falling seven places to tenth. Grey gained 17.5 points and two places in the standings thanks to a nice pitching week that included co-leading the RCLs in saves with nine.
Each week we’ll also take a look at the top ten overall standings in our other Razzball sponsored league, the RazzSlam. This is our NFBC Best Ball league with managers from all across the industry, from content providers to fans and readers just like you.
Joshua Smith leads the way this week in the RazzSlam, jumping up from second place to take the top spot. Frank Grimes is right there, nipping at his heels, ready to bring home the title for the Razzball faithful. Samuel Hanley is the biggest point gainer this week, with 708 points gained. Razzball’s very own, Keelin Billue was the biggest mover, moving up 181 places to 51st overall thanks to a 677 point week.
**REMINDER** Be sure to set your FAAB transactions for tonight. The first FAAB run of the RazzSlam runs tonight at 10 ET.
TOP TEAMS
Typically, this is where I will keep you abreast of the top ten teams each week in the overall standings. It takes a little bit to get the RCL Bots up and running and shake off the offseason rust, so this week we’re just bringing you the 100-point teams, courtesy of VinWin’s scouring of the standings pages.
| TEAM | LEAGUE | PTS |
|---|---|---|
| mdubs | RCL 8 | 105.5 |
| Cavendish | RCL 2 | 101 |
| tothba | RCL 21 | 100.5 |
None of last week’s 100-point teams survived to this week with wild swings in full bloom.
TRADES
All the trades that have gone down in the past week. Public ridicule is not only allowed, but encouraged.
| DATE | LEAGUE | DETAILS |
|---|---|---|
| 4/3/2023 | RCL 34 |
New Team 7 traded Corbin Burnes to MONEEMAN for Nathaniel Lowe & Jose Leclerc
|
| 4/7/2023 | RCL 27 |
SpeedyClaxton traded Framber Valdez to Ghost of Yogi Berra for Masataka Yoshida
|
| 4/9/2023 | FCL |
Little Lebowski Urban Achievers traded Brice Turang to Livin’ on a Prayer for Oscar Colas
|
Corbin Burnes for a mid-range first baseman and a closer who doesn’t have the job all to himself is…interesting. I love the trade of the rookie talent here though. That’s fun!
WEEKLY LEADERS
The best of the best from the week that was.
R – 65 – Peoria Bombers (RCL 6)
HR –19 – Say Hey Kid (RCL 28)
RBIs – 72 – Hoboknives (RCL 20)
SB – 16 – Vin 10 (RCL 10)
AVG – .340 – DFresh (FCL)
K – 87 – Bayou Bombers (RCL 26)
W – 10 – mdubs (RCL 8)
SV – 9 – edg88 (RCL 15) & GREY (Perts)
ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 1.13 – depintob1 (RCL 3) (in 48 IP)
WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.745 – 5Fish Man Good (RCL 23) (in 51 IP)
ABs – 342 – Des Morts-Vivants (ECFBL)
Hits – 100 The Sneetches (RCL 35)
VinWins pulled all our weekly stats this week and also came up with some other juicy bits for this week:
84 teams had an ERA of 5 or worse. (OOF)
111 teams recorded 0 saves. (YIKES)
All teams had at least 1 stolen base. (The average was 6.38) (Again…we’re going to blow away SB records this year)
Top Hitting team
Satchel Rages ( NOTLZ ) 89 for 332 (.268) 57 RUNS/ 18 HR/ 54 RBI/ 13 SB
Top pitching team
mdubs ( RCL 8 ) 69.33 IP/ 10 WINS/ 66 K/ 4 SVS/ 2.08/0.952
Thanks, Vin!
TEAM OF THE WEEK
Our weekly shout out to the team that killed it the previous week.
Team: mdubs
League: RCL 8
Stats: AVG: .289, R: 54, HR: 12, RBI: 41, SB: 8
IP: 69.1, ERA: 2.08, WHIP: 0.952, K: 66, W: 10, SV: 4
Summary: I have a very scientific formula that I use to plug in all the weekly numbers and assign them point values according to my own valuations. That runs with the RCL Bot data, so in the meantime, VinWins does the same thing base on his points and valuations. A HUGE thank you to VIn for data collecting and running these numbers while the RCL Bots are busy shotgunning 10W-30 in preparation for next week. Vin sent me three teams who were very close in the TOW points and I picked mdubs over StraightOuttaVEGAS (RCL 35) and Satchel Rages (NOTLZ). Lower ratios and equivalent hitting were my biggest factors. I like TOW to be the most well-rounded team of the week and I think mdubs earned that this week. Big congratulations there, now it’s just a matter of holding on for 170 more days.
Want to be Matt’s Twitter pal? That’s kinda creepy, but you can follow him here: @MattTruss
